In the past, influenza vaccines have generally been administered to patients at particular risk from the consequences of influenza infection, such as: children with asthma, cardiac disease, sickle cell disease, HIV or diabetes; children living in a household containing someone suffering from asthma, cardiac disease, sickle cell disease, HIV or diabetes; and the elderly.
More recently, there have been suggestions that the scope of influenza vaccination should be extended to include all children, rather than just those at high risk. To increase coverage in this way, however, would require a huge increase in production capacity, and vaccine manufacturers are not well placed to deliver this increase. Stockpiling of vaccines is not possible because the vaccine strains change every year and are produced almost in a just-in-time manner.
Thus there is a need to increase the available doses of influenza vaccine in order to deal with the increased demand for pediatric vaccination.